


Do You Trust Me?

by Kittenbedtimestories



Category: Antisepticeye - Fandom, jacksepticeye, jse egos - Fandom
Genre: 2016 Fandom setting, Cheesy, Fandom Allusions & Cliches & References, Light Angst, Minor Violence, POV Second Person, Seriously there's a lot of cliches in this one, Sorry Not Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23550613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittenbedtimestories/pseuds/Kittenbedtimestories
Summary: Sure, you liked your YouTube videos, but you definitely needed more sleep. It seemed like Jack had responded to you, out loud. It was like he'd looked right at you, talked to you.But that was impossible, wasn't it? And the lights flickering around you, static buzzing, that was all impossible too, right? It was impossible that he was reaching out, and that you were taking his hand. Right?Right?
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted on likepuppetsonastring.tumblr.com.] This fic is set in either late 2016 or early 2017, after the first Anti stuff came about.

“And I will SEE ALL YOU DUDES…IN THE NEXT VIDEO!”

The outro music played, a thumping song that made you laugh as you dropped your arms, bopping your head to the beat as you scrolled down to the comments, leaving your own commentary before reading everyone else’s. There were already well over a thousand comments, and you’d clicked the video by pure chance just as it came out. You had learned that twenty seconds of outro music was more than enough time to briefly skim the funnier comments that popped up between the spamming “buy me” bots so abundant these days.

This was a routine of yours: Come home, do some work, watch videos, and sleep. It was a good system, keeping you motivated to actually finish the work you needed to before rewarding yourself with the antics of your favorite youtuber at the end of the day, almost always leaving you smiling as you turned off the lights. Jack, Mark, Ethan, everyone you watched made you so happy (hell, that was probably part of the reason you kept watching them). They might not know you personally, but that was more than okay with you. For you, it was enough to send them your love and support in comments and likes and other little interactions. It was really cool to get get the occasional like or reblog from them in return, and even better to get a rare reply. That felt like being seen in the sea of fans. Really, though, you just liked being a part of the community, laughing at inside jokes with your internet friends, smiling and crying together through all the videos and games. Everyone was so nice, it was unbelievable, and even with the occasional dramatic flare up, you still felt like you were constantly surrounded by millions of friends when you logged on.

You were so lost in thought that it startled you when the music cut out and Jack’s voice came up again in the little outro clip. Ah, you’d forgotten about these! You scrolled up, smiling.

“I fuckin’ dropped my headphones again, dammit,” he said through a laugh, feigning annoyance as he ducked out of frame to pick them up from the floor. You chuckled, shaking your head, and though you knew he couldn’t hear you, you muttered fondly.

“I mean, it’s to be expected ya over-enthusiastic green bean.”

“Yeah, say that to my face, bitch!” The giggled reply caught you off-guard and you blinked at Jack, who was grinning straight at the camera.

“Damn, my timing is on today.” You really should stop talking to yourself, but you couldn’t stop looking as Jack sidled toward the camera, swinging his headset in one hand and adjusting the VR set in the other, smiling down at them.

“It wasn’t even a clever joke, just plain insulting. Over-enthusiastic my ass! I am the perfect amount of enthusiastic!”

“It’s like you can hear me!” But it was funny, the video counter wasn’t counting up anymore…

Jack’s smile dropped in surprise and his eyes shot up to look at the camera. “Wait. You heard that? You…saw that?”

It was your turn to be surprised. This was…not something you expected. Deciding that you didn’t have to worry about sounding crazy as you were home alone, you decided to test it. Why not?

“Uh…yeah. Yes, you said I insulted you.”

“I…do that all the time. I always talk after the video, but…but I mean, you’ve never heard me before.” Jack was staring at you, halfway between concern and interest.

You shook your head. “Okay, I must be really tired. I’m going to bed,” you announced, trying to convince yourself that you were just talking to yourself.

“I mean, if it makes you feel better,” he said, shrugging. But he looked disappointed. It almost made you sad. But…but that would be ridiculous. Getting sad about a hallucination. Ridiculous.

You stood, pulling your headphones off and setting them down. It seemed silly, but you couldn’t bring yourself to close out the tab. This was mad. You were way too tired, exhausted from work, so you were seeing things. Maybe tomorrow you should watch something else, some TV or something, or maybe read a book. Clearly you’d been on YouTube too much lately.

As you took a step toward the bed, your overhead light buzzed and dimmer for a moment. You frowned in its direction. Was there something up with the power tonight? There wasn’t supposed to be a storm, but maybe a power surge. Should you unplug things before you settled down? The light dimmed again, and so did your lamp on your desk this time, the buzzing getting louder. Strangely, there seemed to be another sound in the buzzing, almost like a voice…

Something “tink”d behind you, and you turned to see Jack tapping frantically on the glass, saying something you couldn’t hear.

Okay…dream fully commenced, you supposed. You didn’t think you were tired enough to fall asleep at your desk, but you don’t ever remember falling asleep, right? Why not go with it? Lucid dreaming seemed pretty cool. You picked up the headphones again and put them on.

“-sten to me! Oh, thank Christ, you put those back on, gimme your hand, now!”

“What?”

“Give me your damn hand! You’ve gotta trust me for a minute. I’m not sure how he got out, but you’re in trouble and you need to come on, now.” Jack was leaning toward the camera, hand outstretched toward you.

“What you do mean, him?! How the hell…you’re a YouTube video, how the hell do I take your hand? What trouble?!” The lights flickered again, the buzzing now a constant drone, and the faint voice was definitely audible now, singing something you couldn’t understand the words to.

“Him, dammit, now c’mon! Just reach out!”

“Jack, I dunno…” This dream was quickly turning into a nightmare, and you were starting to get scared.

“C’mon dude, you can trust me, please!”

Your overhead light shattered with a loud POP and you jumped, hand surging forward before you could think. You reached…

…and felt his hand grab yours. Suddenly, you were falling.

And then you were standing. Shell-shocked, you blinked and stumbled a step back, but someone’s hands were on your arms to steady you.

“Easy, easy, that kind ‘a travel’s hard on you the first time you do it.”

You gaped. Jack was standing right in front of you, in person. His hands were warm on your skin, his grip just tight enough to keep you from falling over, and you could feel their absence when he stepped away.

“How-? What-? How did-? I’m-?”

Jack smiled in what seemed to be half panicked and half reassuring way. “Hi. Ah…welcome to the video?”

“Weirdest. Dream. Ever.”

“Ah, yep, that’s probably the most sensible take on this. Sure, a dream it is then.”

“Dream it is,” you agreed, not willing to argue the point with a figment of your own imagination. “It’s…nice to meet you I guess, Jack. Or Sean, I guess-“

“Oh, no, no,” he said quickly shaking his head, “I’m not Sean. I’m Jack.”

You stared at him blankly. “Meaning?”

“Meaning Sean is part of your world. He’s the…actual person, I guess.” He shrugged. “There’s no great way of explaining all of this. Honestly, I’ve never had to before, I’ve not had this happen before, so…Let’s go with this for now. I’m Jacksepticeye, meaning I’m the part of Jack that exists online. In his videos, on twitter and tumblr and all that. I’m a…a persona, I guess. But I’m just that persona.”

You nodded slowly, still not understanding fully. “So…I’m…in the Internet right now?”

“Yeah.” Jack nodded. “Welcome to the Web.”

“A physical place.”

“More or less.”

“How?”

“Again, I don’t really know. I wasn’t here for the beginning of it. All I know is that I exist. This place exists, at least to me…us. It’s sort of half-real I think. More electricity and code and computers and all that than physical stuff, if that makes any sense.”

“That makes exactly no sense.”

Jack shrugged again, holding his hands up in defeat. “I did say I’d never explained it before. I dunno if I can do any better than that.”

Sighing, you shook your head. “Well, this is still a dream, so it’s working on dream logic I guess. This exists because it does, that’s all.”

“Alright, yeah,” he agreed, smile returning full force.

“Now about that…thing…”

And the smile was gone. “He hasn’t done that before.”

“He?” But Jack didn’t seem to hear you. He walked over to the camera, looking at the screen on it for something before busying himself finding a plug for it.

“He’s never made it out of a video before. It shouldn’t be possible, he’s no more real than I am, in that sense. I suppose after Halloween, he would be stronger, though, wouldn’t he?”

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as you realized why you recognized that voice in the static. It was one you’d been hearing only in static, in glitched-out clips of otherwise normal videos. “Not…?” He nodded, but didn’t say anything, so you continued. “But isn’t he stuck…out there, then? In my world?”

“No. I think…I mean, again, he’s only as physically real as I am, so I don’t think he’s capable of actually getting out. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but I think he’s…connected to you, somehow. And I thought he might try to…well, I dunno what he was trying to do, but I didn’t really think it through. Maybe I should have just crashed the page, but I wanted to save you, and you could actually see me…”

The sinking got faster. “Does this mean I can’t leave?”

He rubbed his neck uncomfortably, looking at the floor. “Well, the thing is…I don’t exactly know…how to send you back? And we need to find a way to trap him so he can’t nab you on the way back out. So…no. Not yet.”

You wished he hadn’t used the word trap. You sunk down into the chair to the side of his computer, and he walked over to you and put an arm around your shoulders. “We’ll figure it out, okay? I’ll get you home. I promise.”

You nodded numbly. Just a dream, you kept repeating to yourself. It’s just a dream. But still, the idea was terrifying. You’d loved the idea of him when you’d thought it was just that: an idea. You’d even hyped him up all the way through October, hunting through videos for little clues, liking gifsets and theories on tumblr. You’d never considered how it would be to meet him, and now you hoped that you never did. Thinking back to your room, you finally thought you knew what he’d been singing.

****

**_“One, two_ **

**_Anti’s coming for you…”_ **


	2. Chapter 2

“Now, I’m thinking,” Jack muttered as he hooked up the camera to the computer and fiddled with it, “That I know what we need to do. It’s not gonna be easy o get there, but I think we need to go see a friend of mine. He’ll probably know how to get you out of here, he’s done it before. Just the once, mind you, but he’s done it.”

“I’m not the first one to get here?” You stood up from the chair and moved to step toward Jack, but he stopped you, putting up a hand. “What are you doing, by the way?”

“Making sure this particular port doesn’t close. Camera shuts off, port closes, so I’m plugging in the camera. I don’t want you stepping on the cable.”

You shook your head. Sure, why not It’s not like anything else made sense. “Port. Right. Okay. So who’re we going to see?”

“Just a friend,” Jack said, glancing over with a smile, “I thought it’d be nice to surprise you.” You finally managed to return his smile, and he laughed. “There it is! Yeah!”

You chuckled. “So how do we get to him? Can you drive, or…?”

“Not exactly, that’s not quite how travel works here.” He stepped back, apparently satisfied with his work, and walked over to the door, motioning for you to follow him.

Had you not been right behind him when he opened the door, he probably wouldn’t have heard the small gasp that you let out. It was the only sound you could manage to make, and he stepped aside to let you take it all in.

It was beautiful, in a strange way. Lines and lines and lines of code, stretching out like a floor, standing out in bright, fluorescent green on a pitch black background, without a sky, without actual ground. A few yards to either side of you were walls of more code, 0s and 1s stretching up in jagged, flat topped sections, as if you were standing at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. In the distance, you could see what looked like a mountain made of the same neon code. Everything looked like it was moving, with the code scrolling and occasionally blinking red.

"Whatcha think?” Jack grinned.

The first thing you could think to say was “Well, it’s definitely not Ireland.” That made him laugh.

“No, no, no Ireland here.”

“Are we just gonna…walk the whole way?”  
“Yep!” And walk he did, with you trailing numbly behind him. You stared up at the shifting walls and tried to make some sense of them. Jack kept chatting as you ambled along. “It’s not all that long of a walk. This is all my territory, as you might say, I know a few shortcuts that’ll make things a bit easier. Base of that mountain?” He pointed ahead, rather unnecessarily. “There’s a hole in the code that I use to get to my friends sometimes. Cuts the trip in half, no problem.”

“Uh huh.” Far above you, there seemed to be sections of code that moved faster than the others. Jack followed where you were looking and nodded at them, pointing again.

“Messages. They’re heading to my hub, the computer in there.” He jerked a finger back toward the door. “And then I get to read them.”

“From us?” He nodded, smiling widely. “And you read them all?”

“Every single one!” It was your turn to smile, and Jack could guess why. “Should I expect one from you?”

“…yeah. A couple, actually. Just…doodles.”

“I love doodles!” He clapped happily, which made you laugh.

“You actually do the hand thing! That’s amazing.”

The two of you walked for a while longer. Jack occasionally pointed out different things and explained them. You managed to guess on your own tat the red text was something that was being edited or deleted, which Jack seemed proud of you for. Once, a message flew a bit too low, and Jack ducked too hard and fell face first to the ground. You helped him up once you finished laughing.

“Here we go,” Jack said fially, as you paused to look at the code of the mountain’s base up close. “Wait here a minute while I find it, yeah?”

“Yep,” you waved him off. There was a little line of code beside you that wasn’t moving like the others, and seemed to be a little bit duller than the others. Old, you supposed. What did that code for? A tweet, or a picture maybe? Absently, you put your hand out to trace a zero, and jumped back in surprise when a picture popped up, hologram style.

It was a picture of Jack with a fan, slightly fuzzy as if it were taken quickly. The girl was grinning widely, and Jack’s smile was wide enough to match. White text under it read, “LOOK WHO I MET IN THE SHOPS THE OTHER DAY!!!!!!!! @therealjacksepticeye”. Above the picture was a tumblr url.

“How’d you do that?” Jack had wandered back over without you noticing, and seemed more interested than concerned.

“I just…touched it?”

“Really? No commands or anything?” You shrugged and he nodded, seeming interested. “I guess being real makes you a bit more powerful. That’s kind of cool, I guess. C’mon, let’s go.”

“More powerful,” you scoffed as you followed him over to a gap in the wall, and squeezed into it behind him. The ground here was narrow, but not narrow enough that you were really worried about it. If you stayed in the middle, even the clumsiest person could have walked it safely. There were doors at fairly regular intervals along the walkway, and you figured Jack was looking for a specific one.

“Yeah, more powerful,” Jack turned to look at you with mock sternness. “And you won’t convince me otherwise.”

“Does that make me the boss of you here?”

“Now that’s crossing a line!” He shoved your shoulder and you laughed pushing back.

“Dickhead!”  
“Bastard!”

It was amazing how quickly you got comfortable around each other. Dreams, you supposed, made it easier to make friends. And it wasn’t as if you knew nothing about him, and he was quick to ask about you. He seemed interested in your world, and what it was really like, even though he seemed to understand the mechanics of it.

You were both laughing at something you couldn’t remember, so you didn’t notice the strange, dark green code until Jack was almost standing in it. You had just enough time to say, “Jack, what’s tha-?” before you let out a scream.

A hand erupted out of the ground, the same strange green as the weird code, and grabbed Jack, slamming him into the ground. He fell with a shout, and suddenly the hand became a torso and a head, with neon green hair and eyes, fanged, manic grin coming right for you. You stumbled backwards, screaming again as Anti grabbed you by the shoulders. It hurt, a surprising amount, as if you were being stabbed with two electrodes, the current zipping between his hands through your chest. You struggled, your muscles convulsing with every jolt, wildly out of your control. He was stronger than you’d thought he would be, beginning to laugh that maniacal, glitching laugh that you knew too well from glimpses and snatches hidden in videos, so much louder, uncomfortably loud.

“GET OFF!”

Anti suddenly jerked off of you, rolling with Jack a short way away, but the force of it slung you off the walkway, and you began to fall.

“JACK!” You scrambled to grab the edge, barely holding onto it as you swung wildly, feet kicking above the vast, empty void under the walkway. Wordless screams of terror fought to get out of your throat, but they caught, coming out as nothing but whimpers. You could hear the fighting over you, lots of cursing from Jack and jumping screeches and unnerving laughter from Anti. A loud thunk nearly shook you off, and Jack’s face appeared over the edge, his arm reaching out to grab your arm. He tried to pull you up, straining with the effort.

“Hold on!”  
“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I’M DOING?!”

“WELL THEN KEEP FUCKING DOING IT!”

You managed to shuffle your torso back onto the platform, and Jack let you go as you swung your legs up, standing back to give you some room. “You alright?”

“Yeah. My arms hurt a bit, but I’m good. Did he hurt you?”

“No, no, I’m-“

His sentence was cut off with a scream as Anti’s hand clamped down on his arm. Where he touched began to glitch out and blink into red code.

“NO!” You shoved, hanging onto Jack. Anti looked as surprised as you did when he slid back along the platform, chest glowing red. Jack’s grunts of pain brought you out of your stupor and you began to run, pulling him behind you as you barreled toward a door, any door. Anti shook himself out of it too, wincing, which made his whole body glitch out, as he ran after you, but he was slower now with the injury. He screeched as the door swung open.

“YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM ME!”

“SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!” Jack yelled back hoarsely as the two of you fell through the door, shoving it shut behind you before collapsing to the ground.

You were both silent for a moment other than your ragged breathing, which echoed off of the mountainside around you. When you looked up, Jack was weakly tapping at the code on the wall with his good hand as if to cover up the entrance you came from. When he was apparently satisfied, he slumped down beside you again, sitting with his back to the wall and leaning his head to it.

“You okay?” You pulled up onto your knees, looking at his still-red arm. It wasn’t glitching anymore, which you supposed was good, but it was still just a hand-shaped bundle of code, unnervingly hollow between the numbers.

“Not really,” he muttered, trying to shrug and wincing. “But you are, so job done.”

“Job not done!” you said indignantly, hand hovering over the arm. “Can I help? What’s wrong with it?”

“Not sure you can. Anti’s corrupted my coding a little, edited it so that it doesn’t match what it was before. I don’t know exactly what he did but it doesn’t seem as bad as it could be. It’s gonna hurt like a bitch though.” He managed a half smile. “I think I’ll manage fine.”

You studied the red writing, thinking. “I think it’s worse than you’re saying.” Jack shrugged his good shoulder, and you shot him a sharp look before refocusing on his arm. “But…back there, I hit Anti. When he jumped you, I hit him, and he turned red too. So if I can do that…” You glanced up at his face nervously. “Maybe I can do it the other way around?”

He sighed, squeezing his eyes shut as he braced. “I guess. Not a lot to lose. ‘Cept my arm, of course, but I might lose that anyway, so that’s fine, I guess. Go for it.”

Great. Thanks for the confidence. You hesitantly put your hand on his arm, making him suck in a breath. When Anti had attacked, all you’d thought about was getting rid of him, a knee-jerk reaction of “go away.” So what would happen if you thought of saving Jack? Just bringing him back and making sure he was okay. He’d already done so much for you while you’d been here, and even back home. His videos made you smile on your worst days, offered you hope and support and a place to belong. You’d always hated seeing him hurt, always sort of wished you could just reach through the screen and give him a hug, and make it all better.

His arm slowly started to fade to green, first dull, then neon, then pale skin seemed to materialize over the hollow code, and his arm looked just the same as it always had. Jack stared at it, fascinated. When it was finally back to normal, he flexed it, and seemed dumbfounded that it didn’t hurt him to do so.

“Thanks.”

“No…uh, no problem.” You honestly hadn’t expected it to work, and you weren’t sure how it did. You both laid back flat, letting out twin sighs of relief. There seemed to be a wordless agreement to take a break for a moment before moving on.

It occurred to you suddenly that you’d felt pain back there, and stupid as that sounded…pain meant this wasn’t a dream.

All of this was real. And Jack had really just saved your life. And you were really stranded in a bizarre internet world, with very little chance of getting home.

You didn’t realize you were crying until Jack scooted over and put an arm around you, and you were suddenly sobbing and couldn’t stop. You stayed like that for a long time, curled up at Jack’s side with his arm around you. Just you, and this digital man, in this empty part of the Web.


	3. Chapter 3

“You’re a good man, Jack.” Your voice was quiet, but a little bit jarring in the silence that had elapsed between you two. Jack looked down at you, seemingly surprised to find that you were awake. He took a moment before replying.

“Thanks. Though, technically, I’m not really a man at all.” He looked back up at the…sky? Ceiling? Thing.

You frowned a little and sat up, stretching and wiping the tear tracks off your face with the back of your hand. “What do you mean, ‘not technically a man’?”

“Well it’s like I said.” Jack stretched a little as well, but stayed lying down, staring fixedly upward. “I’m a persona. Sean’s the actual man, but I’m just…part of a man.” He forced a smile. “And don’t ask which part.”

You shoved his good arm, although you supposed both of his arms were good now. “Seriously, I mean it. You seem like a person to me, and to the fandom.”

“Oh, they don’t separate us. They shouldn’t, I guess, no one who hasn’t been here knows it exists, or that I exist like this, so there’s no reason for them to separate us. I’m not him, though,” he insisted, finally sitting up and turning to face you as he sat cross-legged. “Technically, I don’t really even exist. I’m just…code. Videos and comments and tweets and tumblr posts. And I can only actively remember back to when the channel was created. I literally didn’t exist before then.”

“You don’t have any of Sean’s memories?”

“I’m aware of them,” he shrugged, “I know about Ireland and the cabin and my…his friends, and all that, but they’re not mine. His life isn’t mine.”

You frowned a little at his tone. He didn’t sound sad, really, or bitter. Just…resigned, as if this were a fact he’d come to terms with a long time ago. But he shook it off, smiling again.

“And our personalities are a bit different, I think. I think if you met him in person, it’d be very different to meeting me. I don’t think he’s actually as loud as I am.”

“But you still act like a person,” you insisted, “You think and feel and talk and all that stuff. You may not ‘have’ Ireland and all that stuff, but you’ve got your own memories. I mean, Sean’s never seen this place. He’s never met me.”

Jack stared off, out into the canyon you sat beside. He didn’t seem to be focusing on anything, or maybe he was focusing on something inside his own head, but it was a moment before he spoke again, with much less enthusiasm than before. “I am what I am. And I’m happy being what I am.”

“Alright.” You stood up fully. “Okay. I’m not sure I believe you, but say what you want, I guess. You’re a good man to me, though. A whole, real, very good man.”

“Maybe I’m a good program,” he conceded, getting to his feet as well. “Ready to keep moving? We’ve got someone to see.”

It didn’t take as long as you might have thought it would have to get down the side of the mountain. Maybe it just didn’t feel like a long time, as you spent it talking animatedly with Jack, trying to drop the weight the conversation on the cliffside had left on you both. You talked about your favorite videos and games, talking about Undertale and Trico. Jack did his Arstotzka accent and you pretended to be trying to get in with a bad passport, which Jack caught you on because “Who’s last name is McTits?” You laughed when Jack jumped off a short ledge yelling that he was the “KING OF THE SPIKEFALL, BABY!” You laughed even harder when he landed on his ass. He then called you a name that made you laugh so hard you couldn’t breathe.

In no time at all, there was a door in front of you, but it wasn’t made of code. It was just a normal, actual door, which was both reassuring and intimidating.

“So you never did say, who are we talking to?” Jack, for once in his life, was happily silent as he invited you to open the door first. Shooting him a (mostly) feigned suspicious look, you stepped up to it, but listened for a second first.

You were immediately smiling and shoving Jack. “HOW DARE YOU! I HATE YOU SO MUCH! THANK YOU BUT HOW DARE YOU!”

“Just open the fucking door,” he laughed, and you turned, wanting to swing the door open and hug the man behind it, but so as to not look insane, you instead opened it slowly.

“But thank you everybody so much for watching, and as always, I will see you…in the next video. Buh-bye!”


	4. Chapter 4

Mark finished waving at his camera and took his headphones off. He stood and turned around to look at the door. “Jack! Dude, what’s up, you didn’t tell me you were coming over today.”

“Howya, Mark? I haven’t seen you in ages.” Jack walked over to him and gave him a quick half-hug.

“Oh fine, fine, lots of Subnautica recently, it’s driving me nuts,” he laughed, turning to smile at you finally. “Who’s your friend?”

You managed a stuttered “hello.” Mark raised an eyebrow at Jack, who put his hands in his pockets.

“They’re actually the reason I came here.” His smile faded out. “He’s stronger than we thought. And he almost got out so…I pulled our friend here in.”

Mark’s smile dropped as well. “Oh..oh, wait, so you’re…?” He turned to you, and you nodded awkwardly.

“Uh, from…’out there’. Yeah.” There was a brief, awkward silence before you added, stupidly, “I love you videos.”

Mark seemed to shake himself and smiled. “Well it’s nice to meet a fan, doesn’t happen very often.” He glanced over at Jack, still addressing you. “Did he explain who…well, not who, but sort of what we are?”

“Yeah, I did. Basically said we were personas.”

“Personas.” Mark nodded. “I like the phrasing. That’s a good name for what we are.”

“Can you help me get them home?”

“Well,” Mark considered, going back to his computer and typing, looking for something, “I mean, I’ve done it before, so I don’t see why not.”

“What happened before?” You walked up to join Mark, looking over his shoulder. There was code on the screen that mirrored outside, and Mark seemed to be skimming for a specific line. He and Jack shifted awkwardly at the question.

“You’re…not exactly the first target of a Hyde Glitch.”

“Hyde Glitch?”

“It’s what we’re calling Anti and them,” Jack explained, “what Mark calls them anyway, but I think it’s kinda fitting. Like Jekyll and Hyde, y’know? They’re…broken versions, of us. Bugs in the system.”

“There’s more like him?” But you were already thinking of other glitchy, dark reflections you’d seen tossed about online.

“Lots more.” Mark didn’t look back at you, but he frowned. “One for almost everyone.”

“Oh. So…there’s Anti, and there’s…” You tried to think of the names from the edits and drawings you’d seen.

“Dark, yeah. He exists.” Mark nodded, unusually solemn. “He’s not as strong as Anti, at least not yet. Glitches like Dark, and Natemare, MadPat, that kind of thing, they’re weak because they don’t have a single…I don’t know, ‘canon’ form, I guess.”

“Sean’s a good guy, and October was fun, but…” Jack crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head a little. “Well, putting Anti directly on the channel like that, pulling him into the limelight…”

“We guessed it was going to be dangerous.”

“Becaue he exists online…” The realization was hitting you like a ton of bricks. Jack nodded.

“Sean doesn’t know about this. He doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong, and I guess he’s technically not, but the more Anti actually appears in videos, the more he got a voice-“

“The stronger he got here,” you finished for him, leaning back against the foam padding on the wall heavily. “This is all our fault. We egged him on, I…I mean, I wrote stories, I’ve got friends that made art, there’s this one theory blog I follow-“

“It’s not your fault.” Mark seemed to have found what he was looking for, and turned to smile at you reassuringly. “You didn’t know either. For you, it was just a harmless Halloween prank, and that’s fine.”

“But it’s real, it’s really real, and…” You looked over to Jack suddenly, “And you got hurt because of him, he-he slit your throat, but how-?”

“The vlog that went up after,” Jack interrupted, seeing how upset you were. “It cancelled out ‘Say Goodbye.’” He didn’t say it, but you could guess that that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt. It felt like your stomach was falling into your shoes.

Mark coughed, and your attention went back to the computer. “Alright,” he said, pointing at some white text, “so, when Ethan was here-“

“Ethan was here? Like, my world Ethan? Like CrankGamePlays Ethan?”

Mark nodded. “Yeah. When he first came out to LA, he was watching one of my videos to check the edits, and heard me talk to him after the outro, and then…I mean, I assume it was basically the same thing you did. Dark started trying to get at him so I pulled Ethan in.”

You could practically picture it. Ethan, confused as hell, staring at Mark in shock. “But you got him home. I mean, he’s putting out videos now, and Dark’s not out there, so…How’d you do it?”

“Well, like I said, Dark isn’t as strong as Anti, so it was just a matter of putting him behind a firewall. After that, we…well, we spent hours trying to figure it out, digging through the video code. Ethan was a little shocked, so…but he wouldn’t have known what to do either. Eventually, I found this,” he tapped the white text again, “Ethan’s access code. It’s what let him get in.”

“We still don’t know why he could,” Jack added, “we don’t know why he’s the only one, until now, that could hear us. Maybe it’s something to do with you guys on that end, some power you have.”

“But how does that help me get out?”

Mark pulled open a drawer and pulled out a flashdrive, plugging it into his computer. He tapped a few keys and a loading box popped up. “I found his code by accident. Noticed it was different, pulled it up. And my camera was still plugged into my computer, so a box came up with the option to ‘return message to original sender.” Ethan was the one who figured out what that meant, that he was both the message and the sender. So we figured, what’s the worst that could happen I’m pretty good at recovering lost data…” Jack shifted and you glanced at him. Mark continued, eyeing Jack. “Um, so we figured, what’s there to lose? I hit send, then…flash, bang, he was home.”

“And that was it?”

“And that was it.”

“So I could just go home right now?”

“Yes and no,” Mark said, rubbing his neck. “First of all, we need to find a way to keep Anti contained long enough so that we know he’s not going to…attach to you. We’re not sure what would happen if he did, but…well, you’re not physically here. Ethan said it was like waking up from a dream when he got back.”

“You still talk to him?”

“Sometimes. I can still sometimes catch him talking to me at the end of videos.”

That was oddly reassuring. But then you remembered what’d led up to that. “So I’m not physically here, and if Anti gets back to a ‘port’ first…”

“He could go through as you, yeah. Then you’d really be stuck here. So we need to find a way to lock him up at least long enough to send you back.”

Jack tapped his foot as he thought. “I think we can probably hold him off with a firewall like you did with Dark. It wouldn’t last as long, we’d have to work quickly, but it’s possible.”

“It’s possible,” Mark agreed, and you nodded. He frowned. “But that’s just the first problem. The second is that you’d need to go from your home access port, meaning…”

“Meaning we walked all this way to be told we need to go back to Jack’s place,” you said, scrubbing a hand across your face.

“We traveled all this way to have someone who’s got more experience than I do help us out,” Jack corrected, then grinned. “And I wanted to give you a chance to meet him. Figured you probably liked his stuff too.”

This made you smile back despite the stress. “Thanks, Jack.”

“Although that does mean it was my fault Anti got to us.”

Mark’s voice was suddenly sharp. “Anti followed you?”

“We ran into him about halfway here,” you said, “But I think I slowed him down.”

Mark blinked, confused. “How?”

“I don’t know. I just…pushed him, and he turned red.”

Mark shot a glance at Jack, but Jack just shrugged. “Well, that’s…interesting. You, uh, seem to be able to manipulate code at will. Which I suppose is good.” You could see why that would make him, a being made entirely of code, uncomfortable, so you stood away from the wall again and made our way toward the door. Jack took the hint and followed.

“We should be going.”

Mark nodded, pulling the flashdrive, which’d just finished downloading the code, out and handing it to you. “Be careful out there.”

“You be careful in here.”

Mark smiled. “All things considered it was nice to meet you.”

You returned the smile. “It’s good to meet you too, Mark. I’ve watched you for such a long time.” You laughed a little. “This feels surreal.”

Mark opened his arms and raised his eyebrows, waggling them slightly, and you took the invitation, hugging him tightly and muttering a thank you.

“It’s my absolute pleasure,” he laughed, hugging back just as tight before he pulled away, lightly slapping your back, and then Jack’s. “Now go. Have a safe trip-“

The lights dimmed, and everyone froze.

“We should go. Now.” Jack grabbed your arm. Mark went to open the door…but it wouldn’t open. And then there was a giggle.

“This way!” Mark dove toward another door on the other side of the room, and you and Jack were hot on his heels as the lights flickered and his computer screen began to glitch, dark green code starting to scroll by. He shoved the door open with a bang and you ran into his VR recording room. Shutting the door behind you, he ran to his headsets on the table with his other computer. Why they were two separate rooms here, you didn’t bother to ask. “Lucky I’ve got two of these,” he said, tossing you the Vive and giving the Oculus to Jack. “Put them on.”

“What?”

Something pounded on the door. Mark shot a glance at it, then started typing furiously.

“Mark, we can’t just leave you with him,” Jack said angrily.

“Just put the damn headset on, I’ll be fine.”

“You can’t put a firewall up quick enough to stop him.”

“It’ll slow him down,” Mark waved him off, but you were still lost.

“Wait, how is this supposed to-?”

“Virtual Reality,” Mark said, stepping back toward the door and, to your surprise, pushing aside a panel in the wall to reveal its coding. He started pulling and moving it like Jack had done back on the mountain. “In your world, it’s only a metaphorical escape. But everything here is virtual anyway, so when we put them on…”

“We can actually get out of here,” you grinned, “That’s brilliant!”

You nodded at Jack and the two of you got ready to put the headsets on.

“He should follow us,” Jack said, and Mark nodded again.

“I can keep him out until then, I’ll be alright.”

“Thanks, Mark.”

He gave a short wave over his shoulder before going back to keeping Anti out. “See you in the comments.”

“See you there.”

There was a scream of frustration in the next room, and you and Jack put the headsets on.

Suddenly, you were back at the base of the mountain, in Jack’s home territory. You could almost see his ravine from where you were standing, the tall walls seeming to swallow the little door you knew was in the distance.

“We haven’t got a lot of time, c’mon,” Jack led the way, and the two of you ran. You made it about half way before the dark green text started sliding up the walls again. You skidded to a stop as it seemed to replace the walls and floor on all sides.

“No, no, no,” Jack muttered, head swiveling around, searching for a way out, “He’s boxing us in.”

The giggling started up again. You watched in horror as Anti pulled himself out of the ground again, looking even less stable than before, blinking in and out of focus and form. The only solid thing about him was his face, grinning lopsidedly with his wide, wild eyes locked on you. The rest of his skin switched alarmingly between green code and sickly green skin.

“YOU!” His voice was high and sharp, layered as if there were four of him speaking at once, making it hurt your head to listen to, tone jumping all over the place. “You’re mine!”

“Get bent, Anti,” Jack growled, and he turned to you. “Get around him, go. I’ll keep him here.” Before you could protest, he dove toward Anti, knocking him flat on the ground and shouting in pain as he started to glitch out as well, his skin switching from inflamed red to bright red code in time with Anti’s glitches.

You were frozen to the spot, couldn’t do anything but watch as they struggled. You should move, you should go, you should…You watched Jack pin Anti for a moment before his legs were swept out from under him and Anti was suddenly on top of him, holding him down with one arm and using the other to swing a fist at his face. You screamed as it crunched nastily against his cheek and Jack let out a yell that was half pain and half defiance. His face glitched out where he’d been hit, worse than before, between swelling red bruising and sharp red coding. But he took advantage of Anti rearing back to hit him again to shove him off balance, slamming him into the wall of the mountain base with an angry hiss. Finally unfreezing, you bolted toward Jack, but he shoo’d you on weakly.

“No, no, you need to go! Go!” He struggled up to his feet, swaying, and shoving you toward his door, which was still far too far away.

“I won’t leave you here!”

“I’ll be fine, dammit, go!”

“You’re lying!”

Jack grunted in annoyance and pushed you again. “So what if I am? Don’t you want to go home? Please, just-“

Anti cackled, making you and Jack whip around to look at him just in time to see him dive toward Jack. In a mad rush, Jack shoved you aside just as Anti collided with him with a scream of, “IDIOT!”

He seemed to dissolve into strings of code that wrapped around Jack like rope, and Jack struggled as the lines started sinking into his skin and disappearing. He screamed in pain, just managing to keep standing.

“GO! JUST GO, RUN!”

You couldn’t run if you wanted to, frozen in place again as the world seemed to slow down around you. He screamed in slow motion, clutching his head and doubling over in pain, his whole body glitching out.

“No…NO!”

He collapsed and the world sped right back up as you bolted toward him, all fear and panic, all thought for your own safety completely gone. “JACK!”

Your knees hit the ground with a sharp thud and you turned his head but it lolled to the side lifelessly. “No, no, no, c’mon. C’mon, you can’t just leave me here like this, you can’t leave us all here without you. They need you, Jackaboy, I need you, c’mon. Wake up!”

He grunted weakly, and you let out a short, choked sob. “Oh, thank-…Knew you could…knew you could…do it….”

He was laughing. And when he opened his eyes, they were solid black.


	5. Chapter 5

You scrambled back hastily, shuffling against the wall.

He stood slowly, as if he wasn’t sure how to work his own limbs, dusting himself off with clumsy strokes and stretching, turning his neck from side to side with audible clicks.

“Well,” Anti said hoarsely, in a voice that still glitched and distorted but was growing more and more stable by the second, “That was harder than I thought it would be, honestly. I’ll give ‘im credit, I didn’t think he’d put up that much of a fight. But he still wasn’t strong enough.” He laughed, a startling, halting sound. “But I guess if you do it once you can do it again.”

“Let. Him. Go.”

He arched an eyebrow at you and grinned, too widely. “Let him go? What, are we playing tag? Are we playing Red Rover?” He laughed again, disturbingly high and menacing. “Oh I can’t just ‘let him go’, even if I wanted to. He’s gone. It’s just me in here!” He tapped his temple gleefully, watching you stand as if you were an interesting bug he was about to crush under his heel.

You shuddered, but more with anger than the fear that was building in your chest, which you shoved down, balling up your hands into fists. “He’s not gone. There’s no way he’s gone. You’re lying, you disgusting…thing.”

“Thing?” He sounded amused, taking a step toward you. You had just enough courage, or maybe adrenaline, to hold your ground. “Did I get downgraded? Normally I’m a demon. Or a Monster. A Shade, or a Devil.”

“You don’t even deserve that!” You spat, trying to keep up the anger that was fueling you, but it was starting to fall behind the fear. “You’re just…you’re just bad data!”

“Bad data!” He laughed again, and God, you wished he would stop doing that, it was an awful sound that shook you straight to the core. “You’re gonna have to do better than that!” He took another step, and this time you couldn’t help but back away. “Stupid, stupid kid. This is just sad!” He put his hands in his pockets in a move so familiar it made you ill. “His greatest defender, here in his hour of need, is a sad, powerless little sheep who can’t think of anything worse to call me than ‘bad data.’ Pathetic.” The black in his eyes slowly melted away, and you were being bored into by neon green irises blown wide. You pressed yourself closer to the wall behind you, shaking.

“You really don’t get it, do you? He was the only one with any chance of stopping me. Any slim. Fucking. Chance.” He leaned closer. “And you? You’re a dead fan walking.” His smile got impossibly wider in appreciation of his twisted pun. “The only thing I need from you is your physical body, which means that this?” He tapped your chest and you squirmed, trying vainly to get away from his touch. “This is all fair game.”

“He…he can still stop you.” Your voice was a cracked whisper, and you jumped when he screamed in your face, voice glitching out as his emotions spiked, as unstable as ever even as his body wasn’t.

**_“HE’S DEAD!”_ **

You took another shaky breath, eyes wandering desperately. They caught on your watch, and the most ridiculous, absurd thought came to your mind.

_I’m missing the new video._

Video number one for the day had just come out, and you were missing it…

The video was out…

You had the smallest spark of an idea. It was a shot in the dark, but…if you were going to go down, you were going to go down trying.

You met his eyes, hating the green where it shouldn’t have been, hating that they looked at you with so much unbridled glee and malice. “Jack. Please. You’ve got to fight him. I know you can hear me, I know you’re in there.”

“Are you really that stupid?” Anti spat in your face.

“Jack,” you said stubbornly, holding eye contact, “You can do this. I believe in you. I know you can do this. They’re waiting on you.”

Anti’s arm was suddenly on your neck, and you were scrambling to pull it away. “I don’t need you conscious,” he growled, shoving again so that you made a pained choking sound, “I just need you breathing, and only long enough to get across.”

“Jack,” you gasped, “think…about…them. We n…need you.” A weak smile played out on your face. “You’re…the boss…right?”

Anti pushed harder, and it was becoming impossible to focus properly. “Are you really that idiotic? What’s wrong with you? How disgustingly sad do you have to be to believe…that…?”

Had you not been trying so damn hard, you might have missed that hesitation, but it was there and it was enough to give you hope. Anti’s face slipped a little, but he was obviously trying to keep up the menacing front.

“J..ack…”

“HE’S. DEAD.”

“H…e’s…n..ot…”

“YOU FUCKING LITTLE-“ But he stuttered to a stop as his arm jerked back from your throat. You gasped for air and fell to the ground as he stared at it. “What-?”

He convulsed, stumbling back, and you choked out a laugh as he grabbed his head, green eyes wide in shock and confusion. You struggled back up to your feet, one hand going to the wall behind you as you concentrated.

“Who’s the idiot who assumed you could make Jack go silent?”

“No. No, no, NO!” He screamed as he convulsed again, falling to his knees, the ground around him turning red.

“You don’t get it.” You took a step toward him and he swiped toward you, but his arm stopped itself mid-swing, thudding to the ground. He struggled to pick it back up again, eyes locked on you with a look of pure hatred.

“Sure, the fandom likes you. We write about you, we look for you in videos, we track you down whenever we can.”

“You said my n-name,” his voice glitched out as he shot the words at you like daggers, but you weren’t phased by his words.

“We make edits that look like you and we make videos talking about you. We make entire blogs about you, we talk about you constantly, but there’s something that you don’t understand. There’s something that Jack has that you will never have.”

“A-and what’s tha-that?” The end of the sentence became a grunt of pain. His arm began glitching, then his leg, then one eye. When he looked back up at you, his eyes were black voids again, switching to red glitches as he snarled. You smiled coldly. Now he was retreating from you. It was now or never.

“You’re the villain, Anti. In every story, in every video, in every post, in everything we do, you are the villain. And Jack?

“Jack’s our hero.”

You slammed your hand against the wall behind you.

It brightened harshly and suddenly, a picture popped up. It was the same one of Jack and the fan at the shops, both smiling. Anti’s eyes turned to it in confusion, squinting in the sudden light. He convulsed and yelled, shutting his eyes again.

A video popped up next. Jack, at his panel at a convention, jumping off the stage amid cheers to hug a crying fan.

Anti’s hands went to his ears. “STOP!”

A thank-you letter from Tumblr, from a fan whose life Jack’d saved. Another, and another. More pictures. Fanart, of Jack riding Trico and laughing, Jack, in a striped jumper with a bright green heart over his head, Jack yelling as he fell from a Colossus’ collapsing body. Jack screaming at Billy as he fell into spikes. The wall filled with posts from fans, video clips, edits, pictures, soundbites, messages, tweets, comments. You stood over Anti, watching him shake and scream, and it hurt you to see what looked like Jack doing this but you held on to the hope it was giving you.

“Millions of people. Millions. Calling out to Jack to come back to them. They need their stories’ hero, and you’re not going to get in their way.”

“STOP THIS! IT’S USELESS! HE’S MINE!” But his voice was fracturing worse than before. You could now hear another voice under it, laughing. Another voice, yelling the catchphrases in time with the clips on the wall, another voice, saying your name proudly, egging you on, and you grinned.

“Jack, c’mon. Come back.”

“STOP!” Anti screamed, and his whole body glitched out horribly, his face jumping between angry distortions of his screaming and Jack’s wild grin. And then, suddenly, he collapsed. You clamped your hands over your ears and screwed your eyes shut as a high-pitched wordless, unnatural scream rang out and a blast of green light shot through the entire ravine.

Silence. Absolute…silence.

You didn’t dare to open your eyes, praying to anything that would listen.

Please, please, please.

And then…a groan.

Your eyes shot open. “Jack?”

His head turned slightly, and he jerked, slowly rolling over onto his side, away from you. He pulled himself up until he was resting on his elbow, breathing heavily as you held your breath. He pushed himself up into a crouch, put his hands out in front of him, flexing them and turning them. Finally, he turned to look at you.

You’d never been happier in your life to see blue eyes.

“JACK!”

He laughed as you pulled him into a bone-crushing hug, hugging back just as intensely. “Hey.”

“Don’t you ‘hey’ me, asshole,” you sobbed, but you were could help the almost crazy grin spreading across your face. You pulled back, scrubbing your eyes vigorously. “Dammit, I am so glad to see you.”

“I’m glad to be back!” You could tell that he was trying desperately to sound light about it, but there was more genuine relief in than teasing in it. More quietly, he added, “Thank you…for those.” He motioned to the wall of still-playing messages, smiling at them fondly.

“Don’t thank me, thank them.”

“I do,” he chuckled, sitting back with his hands behind him, “At the end of every video. And I mean it every time. You guys are amazing.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, moving to sit beside him so that you could both look at the wall. New things were scrolling through now. Gifs from the new video, theories about lore, and more fanart from recent games. “Yeah, I think we are. There’s so many of us now.”

“14 million.” He sounded wistful about it. You looked over to catch a goofy smile on his face, and your own grin had to match it. “14 million. And counting. God, imagine when it’s 15, or 20. Imagine that. Millions and millions of people, and they all like the stuff I do here. They like the games. They like…”

“You.”

His smile shifted almost imperceptibly to a sad one. “They like Sean.”

“No.” He looked over at you, questioningly. You shrugged. “No, Jack. They love you.” You looked back at the wall, pretending to study it. “You said that you’re the part of Sean that exists online. Well…that’s the only part we really know. And yeah, we love Sean, we love the person behind it all, but well…we know you. You’re the one that makes us smile and laugh, that we go on adventures with in every video. We love Sean, the person, because he’s real and he’s like us, he built his own world, but we love that world. We love Jacksepticeye, the channel, the brand, the community. We love the whole green and blue eyeballs, flatcap, green hair, yelling intro and outro at top volume, high-fiving until the headphones fall off schtick. We love Sean for being the man who started it all, for caring for us so much and working so hard to do what he loves, for doing all the good he does for the world, but we also love the world he created online. So that means we love you.”

Apparently, it was possible for a computer program to cry, because Jack was wiping his eyes on the collar of his shirt. He couldn’t even muster a comeback or a comment at all. You patted his back awkwardly.

“As for me, anyway…I’d still love to meet Sean, of course. But…I’m so fucking glad I got to meet you. I think everyone wishes you’d reply when they say something stupid to their screen, and…as much as this’s been terrifying, and dangerous, and as much as I do want to go home…I have loved every second I got to spend with you. It’s like finally getting to talk to an old friend. I mean it when I say I love you, Jack.”

He couldn’t speak for a long moment, but did manage to pull you back into a hug, choking out a laugh. When he finally managed to speak, he was still very hoarse.

“Thank you. And I mean it when I say I love you, too. I love you guys more than anything else in the world.” He laughed a little again, hiccupping slightly. “I don’t even have a fuckin’ thing to say after that speech. God, how embarrassing.”

“The loudest man in the universe doesn’t have words for me. Someone, alert the media.” He squeezed your shoulders and the both of you finally moved to stand up.

Neither of you said anything else as you walked along, and when you finally got back to Jack’s door, he opened it and gestured, almost teasingly, for you to go in first. You thanked him for his chivalry. It was good to be home.

“You didn’t argue when I said man this time,” you said as Jack adjusted the camera.

He huffed. “I was a little tired, having been possessed and all.” He straightened up and turned to look at you, hands on his hips. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be, I guess.”

“Then…it’s goodbye.”

“Yeah.”

There was barely a second of hesitation before you pulled each other in for one last hug. After a moment, you pulled apart again, smiling.

“I think…” he stepped back, taking the flashdrive from you and plugging it into his computer, booting up the code, and strategically not looking at you. “I think it’s probably possible to be both a man and a program.”

“Well,” you went to stand in front of the camera, “I can say without a doubt that you are the best Persona I’ve ever met.”

“I’ll take that.” He paused, then looking back up at you finally, said tightly, “See ya in the next video.”

“Yeah. See you in the next one.”

One more long look, one last smile. You gave him a sad little wave, and he gave you one in return. You turned back to the camera, closing your eyes, and heard the mouse click.

And then everything was fading. And you were falling.


	6. Epilogue

“And I will see all you dudes…IN THE NEXT VIDEO!”

You laughed as the outro music started playing, dropping your arms and rubbing your throat. How does he do that every day? His vocal chords must really hate him. It made you smile as you flicked through the comments to see so many people chatting about the game. There were even a few good puns this time, which was nice. You were staying for the outro clip again, lately having gotten into the habit of staying just a little longer out of some slight, silly little hope. You also commented on every single video now, sliding sublte references to your adventures in sometimes, hoping that Jack would see. You’d even gotten a reply once or twice, and though they didn’t reference your adventures, because of course Sean couldn’t, it felt like being able to talk to him again, and that was all you wanted. It was nice to think of Jack in his room, seeing your comment and thinking of you fondly.

“That was another good one, Jack. Though I must say, that shar’s getting the better of you. Your raft’s gonna need to step it up, man.” You rambled absently as you flicked to another tab to finish a fanfic you were writing. After all, that adventure was too good not to be told, wasn’t it? And you thought it might entertain Jack to see it written up. You wondered if he’d show Mark.

“Really now? Three stories of raft isn’t good enough for you?! It’s fantastic!”

You flicked back to the video so quickly that you almost closed it out by mistake, stopping yourself just in time. “Jack?”

He grinned in surprise, sitting up a little straighter in his chair in the corner of the screen. “Hey!”

You couldn’t help but smile back.


End file.
